Family still adjusting to life after flood, loss of Gerry Boland

Flood survivor Cheron Boland, wife of Gerald Boland, who was killed in the flood of 2013, sits with her cat Scooter on Friday at her apartment at the Hover Manor in Longmont.
(
Matthew Jonas
)

Cheron Boland shakes her head at the suggestion that she did something courageous. She doesn't call this a tragically beautiful love story. She'd never use the word "star-crossed."

It was simply what you do.

Four months later, her three children look back in awe at their parents' courage and commitment to each other -- such dedication that it took their father's life, and nearly their mother's.

Their middle child, Amy Hoh, of Longmont, calls her 76-year-old mom the bravest person she knows.

"No matter what it costs, they taught us a lesson, clear up to the last second of my dad's life: You do the right thing. You don't leave anyone behind," Hoh said.

She pauses for a deep breath. "I'll never wrap my head around it."

After a family lunch at Smokin' Dave's BBQ & Taphouse in Lyons, Hoh, 46, remembers hugging her dad goodbye and smiling as he said, "Be sweet" -- a phrase she had heard dozens of times before but would never hear again.

"Those are the last two words he ever said to me," Hoh said. "That's something I hold on to."

Hoh's father, Lyons resident Gerald "Gerry" Boland, died less than two weeks later on Sept. 12, when a historic flood swept through Boulder County.

Gerry Boland was one of four deaths in Boulder County during the flood and the only Lyons resident.

"We knew my 80-year-old dad wasn't going to be around forever," Hoh said, "but you don't ever imagine him dying in this biblical flood at his home and being washed away forever."

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Cheron Boland takes a break from unpacking her few salvaged possessions in her new senior apartment in Longmont. She just moved in this week. Furnished entirely by community donations. It's staggering, the kindness. She will never be able to repay the community of Lyons.

Casseroles from friends, neighbors and strangers filled the refrigerator at Hoh's sister's house in Hygiene, the family's designated meeting place.

"When they were searching for my dad, people just started showing up with food for us or to help us," Hoh said. "Then we'd find out they'd lost their homes but here they were helping us."

More than 750 people attended Gerry Boland's funeral at LifeBridge Community Church in Longmont. Hundreds of attendees began lining up at the back of the sanctuary after the seats were filled.

Hundreds of former students, athletes, neighbors and friends filled the sanctuary, standing-room only, to remember the former Lyons basketball coach and teacher.

"It's like dad had woven a thread through everyone in his life," Hoh said. "And when we needed it most, those threads were woven together to make a blanket that gave us comfort."

The community's camaraderie not only survived but thrived among the destruction the floodwaters left behind.

Cheron Boland can't believe her 14-year-old cat Scooter survived the 1,000-year-flood that took her house, car, photos. Her lifelong love.

Scooter must've hid on the top shelf in the closet.

He screams at night now when he sleeps.

But he's a fighter, she said.

It's odd, the things that made it.

A scraggly chicken that recently began laying eggs for the first time.

Dozens of gold Christmas ornaments that the Bolands had been collecting for more than 50 years.

Her wedding ring, which she left behind during the evacuation.

Cheron Boland's 14-year-old cat, Scooter, somehow survived the 1,000-year-flood. She said the cat doesn't sleep well at night since the flood.
(
Matthew Jonas
)

She met Gerry Boland in college in Greeley. By luck or by fate, they were assigned to sit next to each other alphabetically. He was very handsome and equally as charismatic, she recalls.

When they received their education degrees, instead of proposing to her the typical way, he suggested they get their "placement papers" in the same location: the small, quiet town of Lyons.

Fifty-four years ago they were married. Two years later, they bought a house 1.7 miles up the canyon, on a few acres off the St. Vrain River.

They had seen rainstorms before. Cheron Boland says she wasn't worried when she went to bed the night of Sept. 11.

She jolted out of bed at 2:30 a.m. to the boom of a bullhorn: "Flooding is imminent. Evacuate to higher ground immediately." Gerry Boland would drive the truck and his wife would take the car. They'd meet at their daughter Holli Stetson's house.

Through four lanes of frantic traffic, hammered by bullets of rain, they pushed through Lyons eastward. But the river was washing over the highway. A wall of water was rushing down the mountain behind them, but they could not drive on.

Chaotic cars filtered off into every direction. Cheron Boland pulled into the parking lot of the Outlaw Saloon, waiting to spot her husband's truck. She squinted through the rain, her eyes locked on the street for four hours, until the sun came up.

No Gerry.

She drove to the evacuation center at a local school, but he was not there. He must have headed home. The roads were terrifying. But it didn't matter.

As the streets turned into oceans, she forced her small car up the mountain toward their home, until the waters suspended it and flooded the engine. As freezing rain quickly seeped through the doors, she called 911. As it rose up her legs, she thought about Gerry. The fire truck could not reach her, so the rescue crew drove in a backhoe. As Cheron Boland climbed into the muddy scoop of the tractor, she hoped she would find her husband, warm and safe at the evacuation center.

On another congested road southeast of Lyons, Hoh sat at the wheel feeling stuck.

Traffic wasn't moving. Mom and Dad weren't answering their phones. Her siblings knew as little as she did.

Hoh, a personal trainer at the Boulder Country Club, was heading home after several cancellations that morning due to the flood.

"It took me three hours to get to Longmont from Gunbarrel," Hoh said. "All of the roads were closed and I couldn't get in touch with anyone. I couldn't do anything. I couldn't get there or reach them. I was helpless."

When she finally got home, the news wasn't any better. Her parents had evacuated but no one knew where they were.

It would take rescue crews four days to discover Boland's overturned truck, which was swept away near his home; and another three days to find his body about a mile away on the bank of the St. Vrain River.

People began emailing Hoh. They had seen her dad at the evacuation center that night. He was searching for his wife. He asked everyone, before deciding to head back to their house.

"They were both safe, but they both went back to look for each other," Hoh said. "They left their safe place. They were safe from the flood, but they could not stay there."

She lost everything, but Cheron Boland did not complain.

For months, she did not ask for a thing. Not socks when the weather grew chilly, not clothes, no stuff, Hoh said.

Then one day, she made her first request. Would the kids watch "The Sound of Music" with her? Like they used to, when they were little.

Without hesitation, her kids made popcorn. Family time was all Cheron Boland wanted.

"It's perspective," Hoh said. "It's what's truly important."

It's one final lesson that her parents, lifelong teachers, gave to her, she said.

And as that lesson-learned-hard sinks in, Hoh can begin to wrap her brain around what her parents did for each other that night.

The family finally had answers. The uncertainty was over, replaced by heartache. Which was worse? Knowing the fate of the man they loved or dreading every phone call, every knock on the door for the rest of their lives?

"He did the honorable thing, going home to help Mom," Hoh said. "It may have ended his life, but he did the right thing, going back for her."

Life goes on without Gerry Boland. It's a new life. An unfamiliar life. A life none of them wanted to live. But they are learning how to live this new life together.

"Everyone is different," Hoh said. "We've all changed in some way. We've been completely united from the very first second of this, a tight team that will hold on to each other very tightly from now on."

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